Genesis 1:1-3

Verse 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

By the word heavens some understand this to mean the third heaven, the heaven of heavens, the habitation of God, and of the holy angels He created; and this being made perfect at once, no mention is made of it after, as of the earth; and it is supposed that the angels were at this time created, since they were present at the laying of the foundation of the earth, Job 38:6 but rather the second and first heavens are meant, the second heaven is the black space, the first heaven is the blue sky, the substance of them; as yet being imperfect and unadorned; the expanse not yet made, or the ether and air not yet stretched out; nor any light placed in them, or adorned with the sun, moon, and stars: so the earth is to be understood, as separated from the waters, that is, the dry land afterwards made to appear; but the whole mass of earth and water before their separation, and when in their unformed and unadorned state, described in the next verse: in short, these words represent the visible heavens and the globe, in their chaotic state, as they were first brought into being by almighty power. The prefixed to both words is, expressive of notification or demonstration, as pointing at those heavens, and this earth; and shows that things visible are here spoken of, whatever is above us, or below us to be seen: the word for heaven, comes from one which signifies high or above; as that for earth from one that signifies low and beneath.

Verse 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

It was not in the form it now is, otherwise it must have a form, as all matter has; it was a fluid matter, the watery parts were not separated from the earthy ones; it was not put into the form of a globe it is now, the sea apart, and the earth by itself, but were mixed and blended together; it was, a waste and a desert, empty and destitute of both men and beasts; and it may be added, of fishes and fowls, and also of trees, herbs, and plants. It was, a chaos and an indigested mass of matter; a chaos first to exist, and then the wide extended earth. Make a chaos to be the beginning of all things, out of which the immaterial being God made all things that consist of matter, the one signifying hidden or imperfect, the other open or perfect: the system of the universe had but one form; the heaven and earth, and the nature of them, being mixed and blended together, until by degrees they separated and obtained the form they now have: supposed the principle of the universe to be a dark and windy air, or the blast of a dark air, and a turbid chaos surrounded with darkness, as follows, and darkness was upon the face of the deep: the whole fluid mass of earth and water mixed together. This abyss is explained by waters in the next clause, which seem to be uppermost; and this was all a dark turbid chaos, as before expressed, without any light or motion, until an agitation was made by the Spirit.

Verse 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

This phrase is used, nine times in this account of the creation; and it is paraphrased and explained in Psalm 33:6 as expressive of the will, power, authority, and efficacy of the divine Being; whose word is clothed with power, and who can do, and does whatever he will, and as soon as he pleases; his orders are always obeyed. Perhaps the divine Person speaking here is the Logos or Word of God, which was in the beginning with God, and was God, and who himself is the light that lightens every creature. The words spoke were, let there be light, and there was light: it at once appeared; God commanded light to shine out of darkness; as the apostle says in 2 Corinthians 4:6 this was the first thing made out of the dark chaos; as in the new creation, or work of grace in the heart, light is the first thing produced there: what this light was is not easy to say. Many Jewish rabbis and Christian writers, think the angels are designed by it, which is not at all probable, as the ends and use of this light show: others of them are of opinion, that it is the same with the sun, of which a repetition is made on the fourth day, because of its use and efficacy to the earth, and its plants; but others more rightly take it to be different from the sun, and a more glimmering light, which afterwards was gathered into and perfected in the body of the sun, that it was a lucid body, or a small lucid cloud, which by its circular motion from east to west made day and night.

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